Captivated
by Peeves Winchester
Summary: Hermione is kidnapped by pirates after witnessing a robbery in progress and meets a dashing cabin boy with a deadly secret. Very AU Pirates of the Carribeanesque
1. The Feathered Fright

Spring was beginning to show itself at the Granger estate. The apple orchard they owned was starting to bloom ad the pleasant sound of birds filled the air, welcoming in the new season. Hermione Granger, however, seemed to be oblivious to these changes as she stormed past. Her petite frame shook with indignation, and her small face was flushed with anger.

"If they think that I'm going to marry that complete pig, Zacharias Smith", she muttered to no one in particular, wiping sweat from the warm day daintily off her brow, "they're completely mad."

Hermione had been betrothed to Zacharias Smith, a wealthy landowner like her father, since birth. She had been told today because she had come of age. She gaped in a mixture of horror and disgust when the engagement was announced. She had later thrown a temper tantrum, being very unladylike beating her fists and feet against the floor in protest. But her efforts did not seem to work, as the wedding was set to be in exactly three months.

Since Hermione's family was of a certain wealth, she expected to get everything she could ever want and more. This unforeseen surprise was something that she definitely did not want. She wanted to be able to go where she wanted, do what she wanted, and she wouldn't let any man tie her down with the trivial duties and responsibilities of being a wife. Maybe she would eventually let some man, one that respected her and understand her wants and needs, but if that was the case, Zacharias Smith was undeniably not that man. He was petty, squabbling over a penny, and cold, once evicting an old blind lady and her husband because they could not pay their taxes. He was handsome and smart, having been taught by some of the best scholars of the time, but that wasn't enough. She needed a man who would care.

Hermione kept wandering through her through her property, her icy expression slightly warmed by the weather, her angry march turned into a leisurely amble. She strolled past her family's fields with maturing wheat and barley, the plants' green stalks extending toward the clear turquoise sky. Past their horse stable, with the beautiful red and brown mare she had named Cinnamon. As she walked past the small harbor they owned, with their merchant ships docked and tied to the dock, she was reminded of the conversation she had heard earlier that month between her father and their harbormaster about the fierce pirate ships that his sailors should be on the lookout for, such as the Soaring Lion and Green Serpent. She finally stopped and turned toward the small wood at the very edge of their property.

Hermione marched slowly, as if in a funeral procession for her own freedom, down a hidden, worn path. She continued for several minutes when she appeared in a small clearing. This clearing had been her safe haven since she was very young. The sky and ground had become her comfort, and the animals, from the smallest ant to the biggest bear, from the vicious cougar to the peaceful butterfly, had become her friends. Hermione had hoped her favorite hiding place would help her forget her worries, but her impending wedding cast a dark shadow on her thoughts that didn't disappear once she had reached her haven.

Hermione laid down on the grass, staring at the cloudless sky and the tips of pine trees surrounding the clearing. She wondered if she be happy married to someone she did not love. "But what is love really?" she pondered. "Is a figment of an overactive imagination or is it real? Could I ever learn to love Zacharias Smith?" She continued asking herself these kind of perplexing questions aloud. Her overwhelmed mind and the warm air made her feel sleepy. It wasn't long before she fell asleep on the grass in the clearing.

* * *

Hermione was running, not knowing why or caring. She chanced a glance behind and noted what was chasing her. A man in a red cloak and feathered hat pursued her on a white stallion. Why he was or who he was, she did not know. All she knew is that it would not be good to be caught by him. She glimpsed behind her again and noticed that the man was steadily gaining on her. Hermione was so terrified that she was going to be caught, she started whimpering. Her foot caught on a root and she fell. She tried to get back up, but the pain in her ankle was too intense and she was drawn back to the ground. She threw another terrified look behind her and saw that the man had dismounted his horse and was walking toward her. She grasped her ankle and massaged in effort to help the swelling go down, but to no effect. The red-cloaked man steadily walked up to the place where she sat on the ground. Hermione tried to call for help, but fear stifled her voice in her throat. The man was less than ten yards away from her now. She begged that he not hurt her or her family. The man continued on his trail until he stood right beside her. She began screaming just as the man reached his hand out to touch her. Closer, closer, closer his hand came until finally…

* * *

Hermione opened her eyes, looking around wildly for the man with a feathered hat and his horse. The clearing was completely devoid of any human life with the only exception being she. She glanced down at her gown, which was covered in cold sweat. "It was just a dream." Hermione let out a silent sigh of relief. Then, she noticed her surroundings. The day sky had faded to its usual midnight color scheme. Hermione had been in the clearing before at night, but not recently and she didn't have a lantern to light her way, as she had on those occasions. She picked herself up off the ground and looked around, keeping in mind her mental map from the clearing to her house. With little light from moon, she set off.

The clearing had many paths, many that Hermione had already explored. She had chosen the path that was the closest to where she had been laying moments earlier. It was full of overhanging branches above her and sharp rocks under her, so the path was definitely not the one she had taken earlier as it was not as treacherous. Her stubborn confidence willed her on.

The path that Hermione was taking was long, too long she realized. She whirled around, looking for any other path out of her beloved woods. Then, she spotted it: light, very dim, but light none the less on her right. She hurried in that direction, hoping that she would be home soon.

* * *

A/N: Just to forewarn you, the next chapter is going to take a while cause I am still working on this story when I get the chance. I just couldn't stand having this in My Documents for another couple of months.


	2. The Paranoid Pirate

Disclaimer: If I wrote Harry Potter, why aren't I living in a mansion?

* * *

The dim light that guided Hermione's journey was torchlight from the royal armory. Two soldiers guarded the heavy doors, from intruders, muskets by their sides. Nothing exciting had happened for a while and it looked to be another dull, sleepy night.

Suddenly, a loud cry broke the silence of the armory. Men poured in from the woods surrounding the building in great numbers. Two grabbed the soldiers' gun and rammed them into the guards' head. The now defenseless men slumped to the floor, knocked out cold. Yet another man reached into one of the unconscious men's pockets and pulled out a ring of heavy, black keys. He selected one and gingerly slid it into the door lock. His jet-black hair glinted in the moonlight as he carefully turned the key. The lock clicked and several men rushed forward to open it. The door groaned as the excited men pulled it open.

The unlawful bunch rushed in the small building and then turned to face a man with vibrant red hair.

"I don't want to see anything left in this place. Take everything and be quick about it. We don't want the trouble that we had in Jamaica, now do we?" Several men mumbled their agreement with this last statement. "All right then, after you're done, torch the place. Now move!" The group cheered and rushed off to fill the man's orders.

Only the man who had unlocked the door and the man who had instructed them hung back.

"This could be our most successful raid to date, couldn't it Potter?" asked the red haired man to his companion.

"Aye, that it could be." Potter answered. The duo smiled gleefully and began plotting their next adventure. In their concentration, they barely heard the soft gasp from behind them.

* * *

The gasp had come from Hermione, who had accidentally found the ongoing raid in her futile efforts to get home. One of the men, Potter, had stopped his lecture to his companion about the importance of surprise attacks and turned towards the woods, staring in her direction.

"I think I heard something over there." Potter whispered.

"Of course you have, it's the forest. Plenty of animals live there." His companion answered, scoffing at his mate's obvious blunder.

"I don't think so, unless an animal can gasp."

"What?!"

"I heard a gasp from over there."

"You need sleep, mate, you're imagining things."

"I'm sure I heard it."

"Of course, you did." The other man assured him, behaving as if his mate was a two year old who accidentally confused letters and numbers.

The red haired man left his mate by the edge of the woods to check his men's progress. Potter stayed behind, looking around him for the source of the noise. Hermione struggled to not move or make a sound as he scoured the area. Then she felt a tickling the back of her throat. It started gently enough, as if a person was using a feather to tickle her. The sensation became more intense until she finally coughed. Potter froze and strained his neck to see what had made the noise. He slowly crept up to Hermione's hiding place, straining for another noise of unknown origin.

Potter slowly inched closer to the hiding girl with his arms spread in front of him, as if he was blind and trying to find his way. He continued to stumble closer and closer toward her. Hermione tiptoed backward, hoping that he would not find her, until she backed into a large tree Too scared to move, she froze and shut her eyes, willing herself to disappear. The man came closer to her until he was nearly a foot away from her. She was so sure that she was caught until…

"Potter, you good-for-nothing git! Get over here and help the men carry this loot back to the ship or it will be your hide!" the red haired man yelled at him.

Potter, cursing quietly the man who had interrupted his efforts to find the person spying on them, lumbered of through the trees toward the armory.

* * *

The raid was going so successfully that the red haired man was about to call the entire thing off, just so they could quit when they where ahead. He turned to face Potter.

"Potter, this is the most successful venture that we have ever had. Now, we have enough firepower to blast even the biggest ships out of the water." He told his companion.

"I think that there's someone watching us." Potter told the man urgently.

"Don't get started on that again!" the red haired man groaned. "The only ones here are the men and the guards, who are probably now off somewhere in La-La land. If you're going to be this paranoid, go back to the ship and help the men load the loot. We don't want what happened in Singapore, now do we?"

Potter mumbled agreement with that and headed back to the ship.

The red haired man, satisfied that his work was done, turned back around to supervise the rest of the raid.

* * *

Hermione sighed in relief as she first watched the man that was so close to catching her stumble to a red haired man and then towards the harbor, where she suspected that they had docked their ship. She slowly got up, not wanting to make any noise, lest the man come back.

Turning around, she saw the path she had found the armory on. She gave it a look of displeasure and started towards it. The steps seemed to take forever. Finally, she made it back to the path. Letting her guard down, she sighed and strolled carelessly down the lane.

After traveling down her path for a short while, Hermione realized that she was being followed. She had heard a snapped branch here, a leaf rustle there, but she just assumed that it was an animal or the wind. However, deeper in the forest, these sounds became more frequently, always sounding as if it was behind her. She had whirled around, looking wildly around, to look for the noises' source.

"Hello?" Hermione yelled nervously into the surrounding forest, "Is anyone out there?"

There was no answer, but, of course, she was not expecting one. She backed up slowly until her back hit a tree, never letting her eyes on the clump of trees in front of her, where she thought the noise came from. She let out a sigh of relief as the forest fell silent around.

Suddenly, an arm shot out from behind the tree and covered her mouth.

"You try to run," a voice behind her echoed, "You die."

* * *

I know that it has been a long while since I've updated. I apologize sincerely for that. I have about half of the next chapter, but there is no telling when it will be up or if it even will be at all. I am stuck with ideas for this, and all my inspiration is shot. Not even listening to The Pirates That Don't Do Anything (Silly Songs With Larry so own me right now.) helps. I am currently obsessed with bandfiction (long story there) and therefore spend all my time reading it. I am also seriously considering a new story (I'm an idiot, I know) Any MCR fan should recognize the plotline as it follows Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, but that's just in the planning process. Thanks for bearing with me. 


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